Latest Debt News

British companies could be saddled with unsustainable taxpayer-guaranteed loans of up to £36bn as they try to survive the coronavirus pandemic, a report from a panel of business leaders will warn next week.

Move will accelerate recovery from coronavirus crisis, says Policy Exchange thinktank
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The government should cut taxes and overhaul the Bank of England’s “restrictive” remit as part of a radical new pro-growth strategy to accelerate the recovery from the coronavirus crisis, according to a free market thinktank with close ties to the Conservative party.
Policy Exchange, which was co-founded by Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove, warned ministers to take a relaxed view of rising levels of debt and use cheap credit to boost the economy and protect jobs.

Southwest Airlines Co. (LUV) said it has priced its public offering of $1.8 billion of debt in two tranches.The US carrier will offer to sell $500 million aggregate principal amount of 4.750% notes due 2023 and $1.3 billion aggregate principal amount of 5.125% notes due 2027.

Billionaire investor Dan Loeb’s Third Point LLC fund has Boeing Co (BA) listed among its top winners in May sending shares in the ailing planemaker up 13% on Wednesday.The stock help up its gains on Wednesday even after Loeb told CNBC that he bought Boeing debt and not stock, reversing earlier market rumors that the fund entered into an equity position.

Sprawling company of Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, claims world’s biggest non-bank fundraising in a decade
India’s telecom-to-oil conglomerate Reliance Industries has completed a massive $7bn rights issue in what it touted as the world’s biggest by a non-financial institution in a decade.
Reliance, owned by Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, had said the fundraising drive was meant to pay down debt and help shift the company to a digital future.

Argentina, in default since last month, is tantalizingly close to pulling off a $65 billion debt restructuring deal with creditors but still faces a complex set of hurdles to avoid falling into what one bondholder called debtor "zombie land."

Argentina, in default since last month, is tantalizingly close to pulling off a $65 billion debt restructuring deal with creditors but still faces a complex set of hurdles to avoid falling into what one bondholder called debtor "zombie land." Creditors said they expect to have the new offer in coming days.

Campaign bids to change 1970s law forcing UK lenders to issue payments warning
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Millions of households that have taken payment holidays on their mortgage or other debt during the pandemic are likely to receive “thuggish” debt threat letters in coming weeks as lenders are legally required to issue the warnings.
Martin Lewis, the TV presenter and chair of the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, is behind a campaign to halt the threatening letters, which stem from rules in the Consumer Credit Act (1974) that compel lenders to send a warning once a borrower has failed to make two payments in a row.

A-Level students are finishing school in lockdown and facing the possibility of going to uni online too, but some worry they’re racking up debt without their money’s worth and having their futures taken out of their hands.

A board charged with reorganizing Puerto Rico's debt in the wake of financial crisis can continue its work, the Supreme Court held unanimously Monday, rejecting a constitutional challenge that threatened the restructuring of billions of dollars of debt.

Dubai could see a recession of around 5.5% in 2020 as it faces about $10 billion in debt maturities this year while revenues are expected to drop in line with the pattern of the 2009 crisis, Bank of America said in a research note.

The award-winning novelist on his debt to ‘kitchen-sink’ dramas, why the family is everyone’s first taste of politics, and the paranoia of the nuclear age
Stuart Evers’s acclaimed debut collection Ten Stories About Smoking won the London book award in 2011.

Exclusive: fears of takeover after auditors question whether London-based institution can continue
Soas survived the end of empire but can it recover this time?
Soas University of London is being forced to slash budgets and prepare significant staff cuts after being caught in a financial crisis hastened by the coronavirus pandemic, the Guardian can reveal.
Staff say they fear that management is cutting costs to make the college, formerly called the School of Oriental and African Studies, a palatable takeover target for an overseas institution or one of its London rivals, as the latest financial figures show that it to be carrying multi-million pound deficits and risks running out of cash next year.

Emerging market investors are no strangers to sovereign debt crises, but few have been as perilous as the one facing Lebanon given a toxic combination of financial and political weaknesses and no obvious economic platform on which to build a recovery.

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The amount of new debt issued this year in the US investment-grade corporate bond market will reach $1 trillion today, by far the fastest pace in history. The implications of that milestone depend on how you look at it.For businesses that had been ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing nationwide lockdowns, access to capital markets was a lifeline to get through the worst of the economic collapse.

Macy's Inc. (NYSE: M) on Wednesday announced it has priced a $1.3 billion debt offering at an interest rate of 8.375%.The amount to be raised is $200 million above what the retailer stated earlier on Tuesday.

(Bloomberg) -- As Argentina negotiates with creditors to restructure its debt following a ninth default, the government is struggling with another crisis: preventing precious dollars from flowing out of its embattled economy.Strict currency controls, stalled debt payments, a nationwide lockdown -- and still the greenbacks drain away.

We’d like to hear from people about how they are managing existing debts during the coronavirus pandemic
Since the lockdown thousands of people have found themselves grappling with significantly reduced finances.

Thai Airways International Pcl on Tuesday submitted a request to a bankruptcy court for rehabilitation of its debt, the court said, which if approved would give the airline time to negotiate with its creditors.

Report says those from poorest backgrounds five times more likely to harm themselves
Young women are being driven to self-harm as a result of poverty, debt and their struggles to pay household bills, research shows.
Women aged 16-34 from the poorest backgrounds are five times more likely to harm themselves than those from the most well-off families, according to the study by NatCen Social Research.

(Bloomberg) -- Europe’s leaders may be united on the need to throw money at economies during the coronavirus crisis, but they have yet to confront how to pay for it all.That reckoning could force governments across the region into tough choices about where to lay the burden among voters already disillusioned with political establishments -- a decade after the global financial crisis presented them with previous bills to settle.Europe’s austerity experiments since then, from Greece to the UK, provide cautionary tales of either the economic damage or electoral fatigue that spending cuts can cause.

(Bloomberg) -- When China’s largest residential property developer raised money this month, a third of interest came from banks that service the wealthy, a group keeping faith with the nation’s beleaguered builders even as other investors flee.The affluent in Hong Kong and the mainland have piled in as Chinese developers sold a record $26 billion in US dollar bonds in the first quarter and $1 billion since, brushing aside concerns that pushed junk-bond yields to an eight-year high in March.Heightened interest from private bank clients and family offices is an important support as developers look to refinance or repay at least $20 billion of debt in a year of uncertain prospects for real estate.

A major Argentina creditor group said on Saturday it had been invited to sign a non-disclosure agreement by Argentina's government, signaling that talks could be moving to the next phase after the South American country defaulted a day earlier.

A major Argentina creditor group said on Saturday it had been invited to sign a non-disclosure agreement by Argentina's government, signaling that talks could be moving to the next phase after the South American country defaulted a day earlier.

Even avid free-marketeers see that only state money can get growth going, but the chancellor is suddenly running scaredA consensus has emerged that the only route out of the lockdown is with government cash.

A major Argentina creditor group said on Saturday it was committed to its own restructuring proposal, and it had been invited to sign a non-disclosure agreement by Argentina's government, which defaulted on about $500 million in bond payments a day earlier.

(Bloomberg) -- The opposition to plans for the European Union to collectively finance its response to the coronavirus recession is taking shape after four members proposed a temporary fund for emergency loans as an alternative.In a joint paper, the leaders of Austria, Denmark, Sweden and The Netherlands, sometimes dubbed the “Frugal Four,” reiterated their opposition to joint debt and any direct grants and to an increased EU budget, throwing cold water on the initiative set out by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her French counterpart Emmanuel Macron on Monday.“Our objective is to provide temporary, dedicated funding through the MFF and to offer favorable loans to those who have been most severely affected by the crisis,” the four countries wrote.

A recently ousted Hollywood executive has been arrested and charged with fraud for using $1.7 million in COVID-19 relief loans he received on personal expenses, including credit-card debt and car payments, federal prosecutors alleged Friday.

Campaigners brand it 'unacceptable' that while frontline NHS workers have been exempt from paying visa fees, lower paid health staff working to tackle virus are still required to do so – forcing some into debt and hunger

Talks to restructure ‘unsustainable’ debt held by overseas investors continue
Argentina is on course for a technical default on its government borrowing on Friday as the country continues to hold talks with international investors over plans to restructure its debts.
Financial investors said they expected the country to miss $500m (£410m) in interest payments on its borrowing, according to the Reuters news agency, as the government tries to renegotiate its borrowing before a 2 June deadline.

(Bloomberg) -- Argentina is on the verge of officially being declared in default just four years after a wave of optimism lured billions of dollars in investment.The country’s ambassador to the US said it wouldn’t make $500 million of overdue payments whose grace period expired today until it can reach a restructuring deal with creditors, likely marking Argentina’s ninth default on international debt in its 200-year history.

New York's attorney general said on Friday she has settled a lawsuit against three companies accused of tricking struggling borrowers into paying more than $1,000 for student loan debt relief services that were available for free.

(Bloomberg) -- Argentina’s leader Alberto Fernandez faces a defining moment in his presidency Friday as the nation braces for its ninth sovereign debt default.After five months in office grappling with recession, 50% inflation and a crash in the unofficial peso rate, Fernandez is trying to strike a deal with bondholders over the coming weeks to prevent even worse chaos.If he succeeds, there may be light at the end of the tunnel for an economy that was in deep trouble even before the coronavirus pandemic, and an increased chance that Fernandez will solidify his power within the government coalition.

The Syrian regime has announced it will seize the assets of a wealthy businessman and cousin of President Bashar al-Assad, after he published a series of provocative video appeals where he begged for debt relief.

The euro and European government debt rallied on Tuesday, lifted by a Franco-German proposal to fund grants for regions hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic, while oil rose on growing demand as countries eased business lockdowns.

US drugmaker Pfizer Inc. (PFE) disclosed the pricing of its four-tranche debt offering through which it intends to raise about $4 billion in proceeds.The offering includes $750 million of 0.800% notes due 2025, $1 billion of 1.700% notes due 2030, $1 billion of 2.550% notes due 2040 and $1.25 billion of 2.700% notes maturing in 2050.Pfizer, which is also engaged in the development of a coronavirus vaccine candidate, said it will use the net proceeds for general corporate purposes, including for repayment of a portion of its outstanding commercial paper and to refinance, redeem or repurchase existing debt.The closing of the offering is scheduled for May 28, subject to satisfaction of customary closing conditions.

World’s largest catering firm will use proceeds to reduce debt and shore up finances
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Compass Group, the world’s biggest catering firm, intends to raise £2bn from investors to shore up its finances, as the schools, offices and sporting venues it previously supplied with food remain largely closed.
It is the biggest equity fundraising in the UK since the Covid-19 pandemic began.

Syria’s telecommunications authority on Sunday said a deadline for a cellular company owned by the cousin of President Bashar Assad to pay back its debts to the state has ended, adding that legal measures will be taken against the company to recover the money.

(Bloomberg) -- When English vineyards started producing sparkling wine that aficionados lauded as a rival to Champagne, Jack McIntyre took note.“England was suddenly growing grapes that typically grew in warmer climes,” said McIntyre, a three-decade investment veteran at Philadelphia-based Brandywine Global Investment Management.

Sanders: Biden should focus on student debt relief, health insurance coverage, a living wage, climate change and racism
Former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has said he thinks his supporters will vote for Joe Biden in the November US election, despite a former aide’s warning that Biden was not consolidating Sanders supporters.
In a memo released last week, former Sanders adviser Jeff Weaver said Sanders supporters were “currently unsupportive and unenthusiastic” about Biden and “there is a real and urgent need to help Biden consolidate Sanders supporters”.

The international ratings agency Fitch on Friday lowered the outlook on France's sovereign debt from "stable" to "negative" in view of the anticipated deterioration in the country's public finances and economy this year because of the coronavirus pandemic.